


Aftermath

by Bellovesus



Category: The Gifted - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-23 13:50:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellovesus/pseuds/Bellovesus
Summary: Post-Season 2 (no spoilers/parallel dimension). The Inner Circle has been eliminated, and fugitives are abandoning a sinking ship for the Mutant Underground or going their own way. One disillusioned member of the Inner Circle cannot return to the family he abandoned.





	1. 1

The Hellfire Club's headquarters in Washington DC had been raided by the FBI and Sentinel Services. To say that it was a massive scandal that a powerful Mutant organisation was operating in the shadows within the nation's capital would be the understatement of the century. 

There were no Mutants to be found, as many had been slipping away during the last days of the Inner Circle's existence. But multiple hard drives were recovered, collectively containing a trove of precious data which revealed the extent of the organisation's infrastructure. The Hellfire Club/Inner Circle would be remembered in the history books as the most nefarious conspiracy in history.

At this moment, none of this was relevant to a sixteen year old Mutant boy who stood in the rain, yards away from a police picket line. The organisation that he had believed in; the organisation that was started by his great-grandfather, was now truly dead. And he had played a role in it's downfall. 

He had seen firsthand the depths of ruthlessness and depravity demonstrated by the leaders of the Inner Circle. When he could no longer stand for the atrocities being committed in the name of the Mutant utopia, the Mutant boy, a very powerful being and a key member in the organisation at such a young age, choose to undermine the Inner Circle's leadership, expose them to their enemies, and took a hand in destroying them.

Andy Strucker: Destroyer of Worlds, the boy thought bitterly as he turned away from his former refuge in sorrow.

\------

Andy had taken some three million dollars in cash from prior to his departure from the HC head office. But now, he wasn't even sure he would need it for long. Where would he go? And how could he live with his memories? He carried the money inside a sports bag.

With a hood and baseball cap over his head, Andy walked through the streets of DC, maintaining a low profile as the authorities had an APB out for his capture. He knew that his fake ID provided to him by the Inner Circle was no good to him now.

From around the street came a crowd of people with white crosses emblazoned on their jackets. Andy sighed. They were the Purifiers, who had only grown in membership since the Inner Circle targeting their rallies. It had stirred the local populace into a frenzy against the "Mutant Terror", and Andy had played a part in that. He could still see the contorted faces of all the people he killed among the Purifiers. In his dreams, he could still smell the rankness of their blood and burnt flesh.

Andy kept his eyes to the ground as he trudged past the raucous horde or anti-Mutant demonstrators.

"God is our father," they shouted. "Mankind are his children!" And on the chant went. "America's freedom, Mutants die!"

Alone in the streets, the angry chanting sent shivers down Andy's spine. As he hurried through the crowd, hostile eyes spotted the boy's furtive movements. The few Purifiers slipped from the main group and followed Andy.

Andy found his way to a rundown liquor store. It was so low rent, he thought, that there was probably a fifty-fifty chance that the shopkeeper might either him if he said he was twenty-one, or may not even ask him for proof of ID. The old guy was nonplussed by the distinctly youthful appearance of Andy. Hardly any words, apart from the price of a bottle of vodka, had passed between them. Andy paid for the bottle. "Keep the change!" He muttered awkwardly before briskly walking out of the store and stuffing the vodka in his bag. 

Andy went towards a back alley behind the store. But three hooded figures hurried after him. "Hey, kid!" One of the men announced. Andy kept walking without so much as glancing back.

"Yo, motherfucker!" One of them shouted hoarsely at the fleeing boy. "Fucking Mutie sumbitch..." 

Andy took to running, but a gunshot rang out and the boy felt a bullet scrape across his side. He clutched his side and felt warm blood seeping through his hoodie-jacket. A surge of anger went through him. It was of such force that it took all of Andy's willpower to stop his rage from causing a tremor through the ground, which would have definitively betrayed his Mutant ability to his persecutors.

"Turn 'round, nigga!" The same voice from before growled at Andy. His two companions snickered. Andy turned to see three black men in Purifier hoodies gazing belligerently at him. "S'up, homeboy!" Growled one of the Purifiers.

Andy could hear the police helicopters flying overhead, although they seemed oblivious to the Purifiers on the ground. He mulled over in his head if he should take these scumbags out now and risk being spotted, or wait for the choppers to move on. 

"Right between the eyes, brutha." Grinned one of the Purifiers as the trio's leader aimed his glock at Andy's face.

Andy could not waste anymore time deciding on the outcome. With an underhanded swing, Andy sent a telekinetic shock wave at the Purifiers, knocking them several feet through the air before they landed on the pavement with bone-crunching force. 

The three Purifiers groaned in agony. Andy walked up to them as they lay on the ground. The leader, who still had a firm grip on his glock, raised it at Andy, but a flick of telekinetic power guided by Andy's wrist split the lead Purifier's hand in two between the fingers, mangling his arm. He screamed horribly as the weapon dropped from his disfigured hand. 

Andy leaned down to retrieve the weapon. He aimed at each of the Purifiers in turn. "You might want to get him to ER, guys!" Andy sneered at the thuggish fanatics. "Stay the fuck away from me," the boy hissed at them before backing away himself. Andy then turned on his heel to run.

\------

Andy found a rundown apartment block where he rented a room, which proved to be devoid of all furniture and furnishings, with mould spores blotching on the damp wallpaper. Andy closed the door behind him as he entered the apartment. A stab of pain from his ribs reminded him of the gunshot wound. The boy gingerly removed his jacket and T-shirt. To be sure, the bullet had only grazed him. Andy uncorked the bottle of vodka from his bag and poured it on his side. He seethed in pain as he drenched his wound with alcohol. 

He slumped in the corner of the room and started to greedily, and unhappily, suck from the bottle. Andy recalled everything in his life that led up to this moment. He did not recall passing out within half and hour of entering the apartment.

Andy was back in the streets of DC. Walking through the crowd, he saw the sad, longing face of his older sister.

"Andy?!" Lauren shouted to him. She ran toward him. Andy tried to twist away, but the crowd jostled too closely around him. 

Lauren caught up with Andy and wrapped her arms around him in a desperate embrace. "You need to come home!" She told him, very close to tears.

Andy felt suffocated by the imaginary crowd. "Why?" He asked bitterly.

"What do mean 'why'? You belong with us, Andy. We're still looking for you. Just come home!"

Tears glistened at Andy's eyes. "I...i can't come back..."

Lauren's tearful face faded from view as Andy woke up from his psychic-dream. He saw the now-empty bottle of vodka at his side. the glock he took from the Purifiers.

He grabbed it by the handle and gazed at the gun for a long time. What was the point of going home? After everything he did, why would his family ever want him back? He was toxic. He was a killer. And if he came back to his family, to the Mutant Underground, who's to say he wouldn't do the same again?

At the very least, thought Andy, he should say his goodbyes to them. He picked up his mobile phone and dialled in the number of his father's cellphone which he knew from memory.

Several seconds passed before Reed Strucker answered. "Hello, who is this?"

Andy took a deep breath. "Dad!"

"Andy?! Where are you?"

The boy's eyes moistened. "I...uh..I just wanted to check in, y'know?"

"Just tell me where you are, son." Reed asked him in earnest.

"How's Mom doing?" The boy asked instead. "How's Lauren?"

"Andy...she's beside herself, we all are! Lauren said she tried to talk to you."

Andy sniffed. Tears sprang from his eyes. "Dad," Andy asked in a half-whisper, "do you remember that trip to Baton Rouge? I told you I just wanted you to be proud of me." Andy's voice broke into a sob. "I'm sorry...!"

"Son...just tell me..." Reed was weeping also.

"Andy?" The boy recognised his mother's voice ringing out over the line. "Andy, tell us where you are!"

"Mom," Andy gasped. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Baby, just tell us where we can find you, okay? We'll come for you."

"I'm sorry," Andy said again. "I don't know why I called." He sat up from the hard wooden floor. "I love you guys. I'm sorry about everything!" Andy hung up. He pulled the glock for the sports bag and removed the safety.

Andy pulled himself together. Mom, Dad and Lauren deserved better than to have him back in their lives, he was sure of it.

Andy pressed the barrel under his chin and squeezed the trigger.


	2. Chapter 2

Click! Click! Click!

Andy anticipated the sudden and sharp sensation of a speeding bullet impacting the inside of his skull. But pulling the trigger yielded no such relief. He then removed the glock's magazine to examine the inside of it, and discovered that the damn thing was empty of bullets. Andy could have laughed. He did think the the gun had felt a bit light, despite his relative inexperience with firearms. 

"Dumb motherfucker!" Andy mumbled at the recent memory of the Purifier from whom he took the glock. All the lowlife dregs of the world had united against Mutantkind. The least Andy could do was finish their job for them.

Disgusted, as much with himself as he was with the Purifier, Andy angrily hurled the glock toward the wall across the sparse living room.

The phone started ringing. But Andy simply pulled on his jacket and stormed out of the apartment. He left behind his phone and the backpack. He was not going to need them for much longer.

\-----------

Reed Strucker, fighting back tears, held the phone in his hand before a surge of scarlet light ran through his forearm and dissolved the device in his hand. He fought to keep it under control. He motioned for both his wife Caitlin and daughter Lauren to stay back as they instinctively tried to comfort him. They all heard Andy's voice over the line.

Caitlin buried her tear-soaked face in her hands. "Oh God!" She kept saying over and over.

Clarice and John were in the room with them.

Lauren looked down, her lips and trembled as tears spilled down her cheeks. Clarice comforted her. She fell asleep earlier to encounter Andy in the latest of a string of psychic-dreams. Lauren then awoke and overheard her father talk to Andy over the phone.

"Um.." John Proudstar started awkwardly. "We could head over to the Hellfire building and I could get a trace on Andy..."

"Wait!" Lauren gasped. "I remembering something from the dream." She paused to gather her thoughts. "I know the place! It's near Canal Road North West."

The Struckers, John and Clarice then drove to find Andy.

\-----------------------

John got a trace and led the group to the apartment where Andy briefly stayed for half the night. It was as yet 3:00 am, but they found the back pack, Andy's phone and the glock that was lying on the bare floor. Reed picked up the weapon, John got a mental image of what transpired in the apartment less than an hour earlier.

"He tried to use it," John murmured gingerly.

"Use it?" Reed asked, fearing that he knew the answer already.

John, biting his lower lip, nodded sadly. 

Caitlin held her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobbing breath. Lauren leaned against the wall, clutching her knees, looking like she was going to throw up. 

Reed swayed on the spot, but John and Clarice held him straight. Reed placed his hand over his mouth. "Oh Christ!" He groaned painfully.

"Listen," John announced, hardening his voice as he took command of the situation, "there may still be some time to find him, okay? We need to keep our heads!"

Reed nodded forcefully. Clarice helped up Lauren and took Caitlin by the hand. "It's not too late to find Andy," she told them reassuringly. 

\----------------

 

Andy broke into an apartment block and walked up an ill-kept stairwell. He went to the roof. It had been raining gently as he had walked through the streets, but now the downpour came down harder. Andy imagined that it was simply washing him away with the rest of the shit in the world. The boy strolled toward the edge of the concrete balcony. He leaned over it, gazing down into the alleyways below. The building was eight storeys high. He knew he had found his way out of this life.

\---------------

Reed drove frantically as John's sonar-based senses picked up on the echoes of Andy's movements. Clarice was comforting both Lauren and Caitlin in the backseat. Mother and daughter were beside themselves.

John pointed towards an eight-storey apartment block in a rundown neighbourhood. "Right here!" He told Reed who stopped the minivan.

Reed and John raced into the building. "He went up the stairs," John panted as he leapt up the same stairwell. Reed, trailed by his wife, daughter and Clarice, followed John to the top of the building.  
\-------------

Andy climbed on to the balcony. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The rain pounded on the boy's face. He shivered from the freezing rain.

This was it, he decided. Andy swayed back and forth on his perch. He was ready to take the plunge.

"Andy!" Several familiar voices screamed at him from behind. Andy felt his heart stop. He slowly looked behind.

Caitlin wondered forward, Clarice holding her by the arm. "Baby, don't do it!" Caitlin barely got the words out, her grief was thickening her voice. 

Lauren, seeing what her little brother had intended, trembled on the spot. She looked like she was going to faint.

John had to stop Reed from advancing any further. "Andy...don't...!" His father was sobbing. Andy had never seen his father like this. Not ever!

Andy looked at them with sad, glossy eyes. "Why did you even come after me?" He asked. His voice was eerily calm. "It's better this way!" The youth declared to this family.

"You're killing us!" Caitlin burst out. She screamed as she said it. "Comeback, please!" She cried into Clarice's shoulder.

Andy gave her a sad smile. "Just walk away!" He told them pleadingly. "Just forget about me!"

"Andy, just come back to us, son." Reed struggled to sound coherent. "We'll work it out, I promise. We just wanted you back with us! That's all we ever wanted all along!"

The boy struggled to hold back his tears. "How could you ever want me back?!" He gasped. It came out as half-laughter. "Do you know just how many people I killed?! Do you?!" Andy shouted those last two words. "And I could do it again. And again! The Mutant Homeland will never happen. We were ALL disposable to her," he said, meaning Reeva. "If there's ever going to be a new world for any of us, then I shouldn't be in it. I know that, now!"

"Andy, just....," Lauren started. "...Just get away from the ledge. Please!" She begged her younger sibling. "What you did at the Hellfire Club....you've saved many lives. 

But Andy cut her off. "Sure, and yet more will be saved by ending mine!"

Caitlin surged forward from Clarice's grip. "You're not killing yourself," his mother sobbed. "You really think you're going to solve everyone's problems that way? We looked for...for months...I never knew what they were doing with you, what they made you do." Caitlin wiped at her eyes and struggled to compose herself. "They used you, Andy. Tried to make a weapon out of you, they forced a child to do their dirty work for them. But we love you! You're more than just weapon to be wielded. You're our boy! They made you leave your family."

Andy was sobbing. "I chose to leave, Mom. I choose to fight, I listened to them," he said, meaning the Frost Sisters. "And now I see the faces of everyone I killed. Those people back at the orphanage in Atlanta, and everyone else since! I made the decision to leave you, and now I'm going to pay it back!" Andy then turned back from them and took a step off the ledge. Everyone behind him screamed in alarm.

"NOOOOOO!" Lauren shrieked as she thrust out her hands and created a barrier which Andy slumped against before he could fall to his death. Before he could react, John Proudstar raced up to Andy, wrapped his arms around the boy and lifted him clear off the balcony and dragged him to the roof. 

"Get the fuck off me!" Andy screamed hoarsely. But John wrapped his arms and legs around the young boy. 

"Listen to me, and listen well," John angrily hissed in Andy's ear. You are not a monster, okay?! You're not a bad person!" John then moved over the boy and gazed into his eyes. " But I'll tell you this: If you REALLY think you deserve to be punished. If think that you're such a shitty person. Then let me tell you how you should punish yourself: Live! Because I'll tell you what, Andy. Living with the guilt is worse than death. Trust me! I know what that's like. But when you have family around you, your death will end it for you, but it will live on in ALL of them! So if you want to spare them any more pain, pain worse than not knowing where you were for months and months, you will live on and endure your regrets for as long as you live. For their sake!"

Clarice, holding Lauren in her arms, was in tears. Lauren buried her face in the older woman's shoulder. Caitlin clung on to Reed's arm as though she was about to lose him. Reed fought to keep himself under control, with the added torment of his barely-restrained powers. All of them gazed on Andy with pleading eyes.

Andy's chest heaved and started sobbing his heart out. All the fight had left him at this point. John held him in an embrace. "Just let it out, brother!" He told Andy, this time more gently. Andy wept into the larger man's shoulder. Reed, Caitlin and Lauren gathered around him.

Caitlin knelt next to John, held Andy and stroked her son's hair as she cradled him. He accepted an embrace from her. Reed came in and held his wife and son. Lauren, weeping hard, knelt near them, leaned in and placed a tender kiss on Andy's forehead.

Lauren could barely speak, voice filled with grief. She wrapped her arms protectively around her little brother. Caitlin and Reed held their children and each other in a tight embrace, half-kneeling and half laying on the rain-drenched roof.

John extricated himself from the Struckers so he could share an embrace with Clarice. Both cried into each other's bodies. They came very close to losing another person, and John's guilt was itself a heavy thing to bear. Clarice shared his burden.

"I'm so sorry.." Andy sobbed. But he was stifled by his mother, father and sister's embraces. 

"You're coming come back with us," Reed whispered, sounding both tired and relieved. "We're not taking 'no' for an answer!" They helped the youngest Strucker to his feet.

They were finally taking Andy home.

\---------

Within the hour, Andy was at the Strucker's rented accommodation. He was numb from the grief and guilt. He sat subdued in the kitchen as his mother Caitlin helped him out of his soaking clothes. It was then that she noticed the grazed bullet wound that had strafed against Andy's ribs from the previous day.

"When did this happen?" Caitlin asked him in alarm. 

Andy shrugged. He looked very tired. "Yesterday...it was yesterday. Some Purifiers saw me, and..." the boy tailed off.

Despite herself, Caitlin grinned. "Like mother, like son!" She half-whispered.

Andy gave her a quizzical look. "Mom!"

Grinning shyly, Caitlin lifted her shirt slightly to show her youngest child the bullet wound she received in her search for him. 

Andy was overcome with a renewed surge of guilt. "I'm sorry, Mom..." He said in a sobbing half-whisper. 

But Caitlin hugged him. "Don't, baby," she said gently. She gently stroked his hair as she held him. "Just don't!"

Caitlin made Andy take a shower before she dressed his wound. She fussed over him as though he was a little boy again. Andy, exhausted and subdued by his ordeal, bore it without complaint. 

The apartment had only three bedrooms, so a spare mattress was put on the floor for Andy. That night, Lauren lay beside her brother, Lauren held on to him. 

"Don't leave us again," Lauren whispered. "We were falling apart without you, Andy!" She paused to glance at him. "You mentioned those people we...we killed in Atlanta. You said you saw their faces?"

Her brother nodded wordlessly. Lauren did not need further confirmation. Smiling, she leaned her head lovingly against Andy. "I'm glad you're back, little bro."

The Struckers were whole again.


	3. Chapter 3

The Strucker family adjusted to life after Andy's return. The first morning after they brought him back to their house, the boy lay immobile on the borrowed mattress in Lauren's room. He was an emotional wreck. The night he was brought home, Andy would mumble apologies before drifting into silence. Now, a catatonic Andy gazed at the bedroom ceiling.

Lauren lay atop the mattress beside her younger sibling. By 9:30 AM, Lauren urged Andy out of bed. She motioned him into the kitchen and made them both breakfast. Andy, dressed only in boxer shorts and a vest, leaned his head on the dinner table. 

Lauren lay a plate of burnt toast and scrambled eggs on the table in front of Andy. He glanced at the burnt toast. "Sorry," Lauren smiled apologetically. "The toaster sucks."

Andy shrugged. "Thanks," he told his sister in what was half-whisper and half-mumble. Lauren sat with Andy as they ate in silence.

Their parents, Reed and Caitlin shortly came down from bed to fix their own breakfasts. They and Lauren chatted among themselves. Andy remained incommunicado at the table, even though the family took care to include him in their conversation.

They mentioned that clinic has enough people on hand for the next couple of days that the Struckers need not report for work for the next couple of days.

"I was thinking of getting Andy a job at the clinic with us," Reed announced as he lay a hand on his son's arm. "I could use another hand at the office there."

"Reed," Caitlin chided him gently, "we have a lot of time to decide on that. We just got him back."

"I know," Reed replied patiently. "But there's no shortage of positions there, and we'll be able to see each other a lot and..."

"Yeah I can do that," Andy cut in, breaking his silence. "Whatever you need!"

Caitlin took Andy's other hand. "There's no rush, baby. You need time to settle in."

"It's okay, Mom! I-I gotta pull my weight like you guys." Andy gave the smallest of smiles in an attempt to reassure them. Caitlin returned his gesture with a sad smile of her own.

The family later went out to the local Walmart. Reed, who was still dealing with stress in relation to his latent mutant ability, had his hands deep in his pockets lest the purple lights emitting in his veins, which was the precursor objects crumbling beneath his touch. Andy wore a cap beneath a hoodie to remain unrecognisable in public. This got some weird looks from shop staff and security guards, but he remained close by with his family to decrease any suspicions.

Caitlin dropped some macaroni and cheese in the trolley. "I know what you're all thinking," Caitlin smiled.  
"Waffles for breakfast, tomorrow?"

Lauren and Reed smiled indulgently. Andy just nodded. Caitlin cocked her head. "Or...maybe ice-cream for breakfast?"

Andy half-smiled at his mother. "Is that a thing?"

"No, but we could make it one."

Everyone, even Andy, laughed.

Later that night, when everyone was in bed, Andy and Lauren watched a movie on Lauren's laptop. "You can say anything to me, Andy," Lauren suddenly blurted out of nowhere.

Andy glanced at her. "Uh, yeah. Okay." Andy replied in the same lifeless, shell shocked way he had been speaking since they got him back.

Lauren sighed. She didn't want to jinx her handling of her brother. The Mutant Underground had no therapists, so Andy's recovery would need to be something for them to handle themselves. Lauren, Reed and Caitlin knew they were in over their heads. 

But Lauren knew that the battle was only half won. Andy had been deceived and compelled by Reeva Payge into doing terrible things for the Inner Circle, such things that Lauren knew were taking a toll on her brother's sanity. Andy had killed many Purifiers and Sentinel Services officers, he wrought havoc in his war against human society and potentially endangered thousands of innocent lives. Andy had even attacked Lauren herself and left her with a concussion when he liberated Twist from the mental hospital. But Lauren forgave her brother for all that, and now she wanted to help him forgive himself.

Lauren clutched Andy by the hand. "It's just us here, bro," Lauren smiled at him. "Just, you know, say something!"

Andy struggled to think of something to say. But then, he found his voice. "How can any of you forgive me?" He asked his sister in a flat, distant tone.

It was Lauren's turn to grope for words. "We know you didn't...you know...relish any of that stuff you did for the Inner Circle. The stuff Reeva and the Frosts made you do. You weren't truly yourself."

"But I was, though," Andy protested. "When I threw you and Marcos back, I...wanted you to move out of the way, I told you. But you weren't backing down and neither could I." A tear glistened at the bottom of his eye. I didn't know it would throw you that far. I nearly turned back to check on you, but time was against us, the Frosts were in the car watching us, and I couldn't delay the mission. I just hoped you were okay and then drove off.

"It's okay, Andy..."

"No, it isn't," the boy snapped suddenly. "I could have killed you! How could you ever have me back. I might even do something like that again, you don't know..."

Lauren her hands on Andy's arm to soothe him. "I've known you your whole life. I've always looked out for you. I know you wouldn't have hurt me if you had a choice."

"Please, stop making excuses for me," Andy hissed bitterly. 

"You're right, Andy!" Lauren snapped. "You and Lorna did a lot of terrible things for the Inner Circle. But we couldn't have beaten them without your help. You also helped save a lot of us. You overcame them in the end, and for that, you deserve forgiveness." Lauren paused for a long time. "You're also my brother. I don't want to be without you. Okay? I CAN'T be without you. We BELONG together, and with Mom and Dad. Our family were drifting apart after you left. You should have heard Mom and Dad fighting. It scared me. It scared us thinking about what they were doing to you."

Lauren hugged her brother tightly. Andy gingerly reciprocated the gesture. "You can't leave us again, Andy." Lauren whispered, her voice cracking. Those six months you were gone were a nightmare for all of us. I want to take care of you, and I want you do the same for me!"

\---------------

Andy stayed with his family for a week. He worked at the clinic close to Reed and Lauren in the secret backrooms, where they stocked supplies and forged passports for mutant refugees. One morning, Andy was sent on an errand with John at the garage. 

Andy was hoping to meet Lorna, but John said she wasn't there. "She, Marcos and their kid have left town for the time being." John told the boy.

"Oh," was all Andy could say.

John tried to be reassuring. "Hey, I wouldn't worry about it. They need some time to mend their fences."

Andy smiled. "Yeah, I guess."

But later, while helping out in the garage, a couple of young mutants confronted Andy in the stockroom.

"Oh look, it's the traitor!" A plump, red-faced mutant boy a few years older than Andy, stated sourly.

Another one, a short but muscled teen leered at him. "So how's the Inner Circle working out for you Strucker?"

Andy tried to moved past them, but the two youths barred his path. "Is there anything you need?" Andy asked them irritably. 

"You Hellfire fucks made shit worse for us, you know that, right?!" The Red-faced boy accused Andy.

The boy shrugged. "Yeah, sorry. You went from hiding in condemned buildings to working in garages. Life's been hard for you, I'm sure!"

The muscular teen grabbed Andy by the shirt. "Say that again, you fuck!"

"Terry, Van Der Berg!" The boys looked to the doorway to see an annoyed-looking John Proudstar. 

The two youths were obviously intimidated by the super-strong, Apache-born ex-marine, who was their boss. But Terry, the you with the red face, protested. "He's one of the Inner Circle, he...."

"....Is none of your fucking business!" John interrupted. "Now, you still haven't replaced the carburettor in Mr Simpson's Mondeo. I told him he'd have it back by 5 o'clock. Move your asses!"

The two boys sullenly left the stockroom. John stepped toward Andy. "Don't sweat those two," he muttered apologetically. "Barks worse their bite."

\-----------------

When everyone was asleep, Andy packed some clothes in a sports bag. He left a note on the kitchen table. "I can't stay," Andy wrote. "I'm going away for a while. Don't blame yourselves, don't fight. I need to sort my head out. I love you."

He left the house at 7:00 AM, but Lauren, who pretended to sleep when Andy was packing, now followed Andy through the street. 

"Where are you going?" She called after him.

Andy stopped and looked behind him. "Just....just go back inside!" He told her pleadingly.

"You're not leaving us, Andy!" Lauren snapped angrily. "You're not putting us through that again."

"That's exactly WHY I have to leave, Lauren." Andy protested. He sounded tired. You're all suffering because of me, and the rest of the Underground hate me. It's better this way.

"No it's not!" Lauren yelled at him. You're one of us, and those idiots in the Underground need to get over themselves. I'd leave them before I ever leave you."

Andy swayed on the spot. "We can't go back to the way it was," Andy said softly. "You don't need me screwing it up for everyone."

"You're not, and you won't!" Lauren declared harshly. I will follow you every, shield your path every step of the way if I have to," the girl started weeping. "I can't be without you again..."

Andy paused for a moment before stepping hurriedly toward his sister and lifted her into an embrace. "I'm sorry," the boy whispered sadly, "I just can't stay."

"Then let me come with you," Lauren sobbed. "Just you and me, huh?! I'll let Mom and Dad know I'm with you and we'll go anywhere you want. And we'll be together and work through it."

Andy looked like he was going to agree to all of what Lauren said, but then there was a whoosh through the air and Andy jerked forward. The boy hissed in pain. He turned about to see an empty street behind him. 

Lauren's eyes widened when she saw a tranquilizer dart protruding into Andy's back. She reached into pulled it off. Andy swivelled around to see it. "Aww shit," the boy stammered.

Suddenly, a middle-aged, kindly-faced stranger emerged from the side-street. "Hey kids!" He waved cheerily. "Do you muties have a minute?"

Lauren frowned at him in disbelief. Quick as a flash, the stranger flashed a taser from his pocket and fired at Lauren, the electrode locked on to the girl's chest and the electrical discharge was pumped into her body before she could gather her wits and shield herself. Lauren's gaze flicked toward Andy, but the boy lost control of his legs and his eyes were glazed over. The tranquilizer was quickly taking effect.

Andy gazed helplessly at his older sister. Lauren, shaking on the ground, tried to take Andy's hand, but the grinning stranger stomped on the girl's hand. 

"Oh no, bitch," the stranger laughed cruelly. None of that "Fenris" shit! Your mutie-asses belong to AnthropCorps, now!"

Lauren wept while Andy drifted into unconsciousness. 

The Strucker siblings were now captive.


End file.
